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MILFORD - There are no black helicopters buzzing about or white-coated scientists conducting nefarious biological experiments at a remote government reserve located in the vast expanse of southwestern Utah.
Instead, visitors to the Desert Range Experimental Station are greeted by views of a weed-choked tennis court and several empty buildings that stand against a backdrop of sounds that include the cooing of mourning doves and subtle hoots from a family of owls rustling in trees - natural sounds punctuated by the incessant wind-driven banging of an unlatched privy door.
The structures that rise out of the salty soil are part of a federal facility, established more than 70 years ago in southwest Millard County to study the economic and ecological impacts of grazing on the Great Basin's desert shrub lands.
The outdoor laboratory was established by President Hoover in 1933. It encompasses 87 square miles of fenced pastures that still are used to gather information for range-management experts.
Its manager is Stanley G. Kitchen, a botanist with the U.S. Forest Service. His office when he visits the site is one of the houses built by the Civilian Conservation Corps between 1933 and 1935 that, decades ago, were the homes of scientists and their families.
Kitchen said research at the station has taught land managers the importance of rotating, from area to area, grazing animals - mainly sheep - that feed on native species of Indian and rice grass, a type of sage called winterfat, along with shadescale shrubs and fourwing salt brush.
The experiments, involving light-to-heavy grazing, are conducted in 20 fenced pastures, each 320 acres in size. The flocks used in the research belong to ranchers who are invited to participate.
Information gained is passed on to ranchers through agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management and agriculture extension offices.
Kitchen said the techniques have been well-received by ranchers who understand the value of rotating herds from area to area in three- to four-year cycles to give the grasses and shrubs time to rejuvenate.
Biosphere reserve: The soil in much of the basin is a "desert cement," Kitchen said. It consists of an erosion-resistant crust whose particles are "glued" together by microscopic fungi and algae. Improper grazing can destroy this delicate crust, making it more susceptible to erosion.
Some of his latest research involves fighting invasive species, such as halogeton, cheat grass and tumble weeds.
Halogeton, a plant poisonous to sheep, is a perennial species introduced to the United States in the 1930s and appearing in Utah's portion of the Great Basin in the 1950s.
Kitchen said the weed changes the soil's chemical and microscopic composition by drawing salt closer to the surface, making it difficult for native species to grow.
"What we're doing is fighting fire with fire," said Kitchen.
He said forage kochia, a perennial shrub from Asia that was planted in the test section in 1996, is showing great promise in battling progression of the prolific halogeton.
Not only can the shrub compete with halogeton, it is palatable and nutritious for wildlife and for grazing sheep and cattle.
In addition, it appears to not deter the growth of native species.
The Desert Range Station also is the location of an 1,800-acre parcel that has not been grazed since 1934, offering an example of the Great Basin that has not been impacted by humans.
The pristine section, and techniques developed at the reserve, drew international recognition. Scientists and land managers from around the world - including many Middle East countries, China and former Soviet republics - often visit the site.
And in 1976, UNESCO - the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization - designated the area a biosphere reserve. This recognizes the site as one of several around the globe that offers a protected sample of one of the world's major ecosystems.
"It provides a standard against which the effect of man's impact on the environment can be measured," reads a bronze UNESCO plaque at the entrance to the reserve's headquarters.
Kitchen said the reserve always was under control of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The Forest Service, an arm of the department, took control in 1972.
"Although much of the surrounding land is managed by the BLM, the Forest Service is the land-research branch of the federal government, which is why the Forest Service is in the desert," said Kitchen.
In addition to two houses, the CCC workers some seven decades ago constructed a headquarters facility, dormitory, shop, ice house, barn for horses and support buildings.
They also drilled a 600-foot-deep well, built the tennis court, stretched a telephone line 45 miles from Milford, just over the line in Beaver County, and used 40,000 posts to construct 135 miles of fences - many of which are still standing.
Conspiracy theories: Ralph Holmgren, the station's manager for several years beginning in 1962, said he could step out on the back porch of the headquarters building and watch rattlesnakes drink water from a channel used for watering the trees.
The 80-year-old retiree who now lives in Provo also remembers how the wife of a former manager always would ask him, whenever they met years later, "If the stars still hung low in the valley" - an observation that is testament to the dark nights and the site's isolation.
He said people from Milford and other small ranching communities used to gather at the tennis court around George Washington's birthday in late February for a tennis tournament. In later years, he said, workers had raised the net and were using the court for volleyball.
Now-director Kitchen says an occasional car turns off State Route 21 to investigate the clusters of buildings that sit among pinyon-juniper and cottonwood trees, rising like a green oasis amidst the expanse of shrubs and grasses.
"People are curious and want to look around," he said. "When someone's here, they learn there are no mysteries or secrets."
Rumors that the government conducts secret experiments have abounded for decades, and many living in the area still do not know its true purpose. Folks approached in Milford, more than 30 miles to the southeast in neighboring Beaver County, draw blanks when asked what they know about the experimental station, or they conjure up theories about secret government work.
One of them, Randy Rose, who was purchasing groceries at a convenience store, could only shrug. "I think it's where the government conducts some kind of experiments," he said.
James Bowns, a professor of forestry and range-management science at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, traces such rumors back to the early 1970s, following the 1968 accidental release of nerve gas from the Dugway Proving Ground in Tooele County that killed 6,000 sheep in Skull Valley.
"A few years after the incident in Skull Valley, a herd of sheep died in Antelope Valley to the west [of the range station], and some thought it was from nerve gas, but it was actually from eating [halogeton]," said Bowns. "But the two incidents happened so close together that rumors began that the station was an isolated research facility for nerve gas."
Kitchen also knows about the conspiracy theories.
He said several years ago, someone ran a blue towel up the research station's flagpole, causing some to fear that the United Nations, which has a blue flag, had moved into the station.
"A local newspaper did a story on it and others, who had seen the [U.N.] plaque, were upset thinking the U.N. had taken control," said Kitchen.
"I got all kinds of phone calls about it, even though it was just a joke."